Gaming machines such electro-mechanical and video display slot machines are well known and popular gaming devices. As but an example, electro-mechanical machines typically include three or four reels each having indicia disposed about the peripheries separated by blanks. A player, to play the machine, enters a wager such as by inserting one or more quarters or tokens and initializes the machine by pulling a handle or pressing a button. Initialization rotates the reels to display combinations of indicia and blanks on a designated payline. If a predetermined winning combination appears on the payline, the machine pays the player. If no winning payout combination appears, there is no payoff, and the wager is lost and retained by the machine.
For any machine, the wager placed by the player for each hand or spin is called the "play". For any spin the maximum that can be wagered is the "maximum play". For dollar slot machines, the maximum play is typically two or three dollars and for quarter machines, the maximum play is typically three coins.
Over a period of time such as a twenty-four hour period, a week, a month or a year, the total "play" defines the "handle" for the machine, i.e. the amount of wagers dropped by the players into the particular machine over the relevant time period. For any selected period of time, e.g. a month, the handle minus the amount paid to players for winning combination payouts defines the "drop" or "hold" for the machine. Thus hold is the gross profit realized by the machine. Depending upon who owns and hosts the machine, this hold may be profit to a casino, slot machine owner or slot machine lessee who placed the machine at the particular location.
Recently it has been known to provide progressive, super jackpots funded by a portion of the play of each of a plurality of electronically linked or networked machines. Each machine, in addition to the other symbols or combination which provide for lessor payouts, includes symbols indicative of a super jackpot which, if aligned on the payline, provides a huge jackpot payout. These super jackpots may be ten thousand or a million times the amount of the maximum play or more. For example, a three dollar play in a dollar machine may result in super jackpot of millions.
The networked super jackpot machines as described above are linked within the casino and, through dedicated telephone lines, to other machines in casinos in different, remote locations. It has become popular for a sponsor, an entity separate from the host location of the machine such as a casino, to install the networked machines in the casinos and the casinos would either charge a space rental fee to the sponsor, or share in the hold, or a combination thereof.
The networked machines are each electronically linked to a remote processor which allocates a portion of each play to contribute to the progressively increasing super jackpot. The linking also provides other information to the processor including signals a representative that a jackpot combination has been obtained. The processor also issues signals to displays associated with the machines to notify players at the remote locations of the current amount of the progressive jackpot.
As stated above, some of these progressive jackpots start at, for example, three million dollars for dollar slot machines based on a maximum play of three dollars. These progressive jackpots grow, based upon the portion of the play allocated to the super jackpot, the total play and the probabilities of a super jackpot combination appearing on a machine.
When a super jackpot appears, the network game sponsor, instead of the casino, pays the super jackpot to the player. The arrangement between the hosting casino and the sponsor may require the casino to pay lessor jackpots which cannot be paid by the individual machines. In some networked games of the type described above, the super jackpot is paid over time, e.g. twenty years, enabling the sponsor to purchase annuities to pay super jackpots and thus, fund them at a discount compared to their face value.
As can be appreciated, the electronic networking and play allocation enables the sponsor to provide these progressive, super jackpots. These super jackpots, in turn, entice players to play these machines in the hopes of obtaining the super jackpot. Where the progressive super jackpot reaches certain levels, the number of players playing the machines can be such as to create lines of players at these machines. As can further be appreciated, the increase in the number of players increases the handle for the machine, the amount of hold and therefore the revenue to those sharing in the machines' profits.
These super jackpot machines are typically installed in casinos due to the cost of the machine, processing network and telephone line costs necessary to establish the linking and the funding of the super jackpots. Casinos typically experience sufficient drop and hold for the machines to not only pay fixed expenses associated with the acquisition, installation and networking of the machines, funding of the jackpot, but provide a profit margin for the casino and super jackpot sponsor.
These various factors have worked for the most part to exclude these super jackpot machines from an entire market for gaming services in facilities such as restaurants, bars, convenience stores, supermarkets and the like in which relatively small numbers of machines are located. While these facilities may host a plurality of either unlinked, independent video poker gaming machines or provide for intrafacility linking of the machines, super jackpots of the type described above, have not been provided because it is uneconomical to link or network such machines in these markets. Therefore there is insufficient handle and hold to provide for the hosting of these machines at these types of facilities and to fund the super jackpots.
In many instances these video poker gaming machines are provided by an outside supplier, who may own the machines outright or lease them from a manufacturer. The supplier, which may be what is referred to as a slot machine route operator, would install the machines in a facility and pay the facility a monthly fee, retaining the hold on the machines as gross profit. If the facility has suitable licensure from the proper authorities, it may install and operate its own machines, may enter into a share agreement with the slot machine route operator to share a portion of the hold or may enter in some type of hybrid agreement wherein the route operator pays a monthly fee and the facility shares in the hold.
In those instances where the facility, e.g. bar, shares in the hold, any large jackpots affect the bars share since it is taken out of the total handle for the relevant time period. The sharing of the jackpot payout in proportion to the share of the handle has also precluded smaller venues from hosting large payout slot machines. The may be insufficient handle to recover from being hit with a large jackpot.
There is, therefore, a need to provide to these noncasino and smaller casino markets a method for providing super jackpot machines, heretofore foreclosed from such facilities, so that this market too can share in revenues produced thereby.